This is the new card:

This is from the FAQ:

An insane character’s skill, text box, cost,
and icons cannot be modified. Although
it still counts as a character under your
control, it is always treated as having 0
skill , 0 cost, no icons, no subtypes, no
text box, and no faction, regardless of
any effects in play.

My question is, does an insane character has a printed skill of 0 or just a skill of 0?

Not printed for me. Rules and faq mention that an insane character has 0 skill, 0 cost but not printed skill or cost. But, not sure at 100%

Excellent question. There is nothing in the rules/FAQ that makes it "printed", as B_P points out.

However, there is an interesting little phrase in there: " Once restored, by any means, that card immediately returns to its printed card type. " Makes me think that while it is insane, the designers don't think it retains its "printed card type." So I'm wondering if there was an intent on the part of the designers that insane characters would have "printed skill of 0" even though they never said so...

Yeah, if you go straight for the bold wording, you can say that it's just skill 0, end of story.

But as the FAQ was written, they probably didn't thought about the necessity of a precise wording. There's some conflicting material in there, like:

If a non-character card goes insane, it
is treated as a character while it remains
insane.

If we roll with the "skill 0" version, what's it's actual printed skill then?

On a sidenote: I didn't know that until now (Since I read this FAQ part carefully and thought about it). If a sledge dog goes insane, other sledge dogs still get their bonuses since the insane one still keeps his name (Before that, I thought insane cards are just some nameless, textless entities.).

As far as I know, there's a difference between "skill" and "printed skill". When checking for "skill" you check the current skill of the character or card. For insane characters, that is 0. Printed skill, however, is always the skill printed on the card. Hence, I don't think insane characters would be destroyed by this card. Neither would characters which "skill" gets lowered to 1 or below by, for example, Demon Lover, since their "printed skill" is still the same, while their actual "skill" would be 2 less.

At least that's how it used to be.

Ahzrab said:

I received an answer from Damon Stone on this issue:

I asked: "When a character goes insane, does it retain its PRINTED values?"

Damon answered:

No. The rulebook says, "Insane characters have the following statistics" (emphasis mine). This is saying that it isn't effectively zero, but actually the state of card. Any checks, printed or otherwise, for any of the detailed items comes back as a null value.

When a character goes insane it is easiest to think of it as the back of the card (that is face up) is the only thing that can be referenced, with the exception of Title. IOW there is no printed cost, printed icons, or anything else on the back of the card to refer to.

What a bad ruling and percicious to the game in so many ways, it has been always asumed that when a card "has" something, it has it as it's current something value, but it's "printed" something value didn't change unless specified on the changing card.

Now a Dopplëganger can pay 0 to copy an insane character, but since it becomes a printed copy of that character, and that character is insane and has no "printed" values, Dopplëganger becomes a o everything character. And what happens if the Dopplëganger becomes insane and is then restored? It still has 0 everything.

Not liking this ruling at all.

I don't think the fact that Doppleganger can't copy an insane character and gets that characters normal abilities is a game changing situtation.

As for game play, I think it makes sense. The insane character is basically useless in principle, and this ensures that. Of course it should be in the rules/FAQ...

Hmm. That's an odd ruling. Doesn't this mean that the statue will not destroy a character with a printed skill of 1 while that character is insane?!

Very odd, indeed.

YEs, there is no return for the check. It would be like trying to kill a Guardian Pillar, who also has no printed STR.

And a doppleganger duping an insane character... why would you do that? It wouldn't give you anything but a body to be made insane or to soak up a wound, because the only thing it really copies at that point is the name, since everything else is treated as a zero.

This just confirms that an insane character is a character with a title, and nothing else, until it is restored.

Regarding whether the Statue will destroy an insane charcter, I don't know if the answer is mathematical or "common sense"... The return value is null. Is null less than 1?

My concern is more about a temporal condition (insanity) affecting printed values (of course it should affect current values) without specific text, since all other effects only affect current values (without specific text f.e. Like a Moth).

I find easier to answer "What are a card's printed X?" with "Whatever X is phisically printed in ink on the card".

TheProfessor said:

I think it's similar to Schroedinger's kitten: There's no way to tell if an insane character is destroyed or not until you flip the card over, i.e. restore it.

yes, Damon clarified that there is no printed skill on an insane character, therefore the comparison is non-computable. Therefore it does not reply "yes" to the question "is the skill less than 1", so is not destroyed.

jhaelen said:

This. +1

...I shouldn't have asked that question in the first place...I'm more confused now than before ;(

Penfold said:

This is pretty much my understanding.

Simply put, an insane character has no printed skill. It is not destroyed by the Yhanthlei doo-doo until that insane character is restored (if its actual printed skill is 1 or less).

I see no issue with the ruling. The only thing that is actually 'pernicious' in this thread is the Y'ha-nthlei Statue itself, IMNSHO.